Tomorrow's the first Friday of the month, so it's Modern night at my local FNM. Knowing my local scene, either everybody will be packing UR Delver / Pyro with 4x Treasure Cruise, or they'll be packing the deck that intends to beat it.
I'm on team "beat it." So far, I've crafted a variant of BW Tokens built low to the ground and with generous graveyard hate, which can also survive a mono-red burn deck after appropriate side-boarding. It tests better against UR Delver than anything else I've figured out.
A side idea I have: I've noticed that Modern is just turning into a token-fest. Between Pyromancer, Rabblemaster, Brimaz, Lingering Souls, and Splinter Twin, it seems like every deck now plays tokens (even Pod plays Voice of Resurgence). Maybe I'm taking the wrong approach. I'm tempted to build a grindy mono-black deck with 4x Illness in the Ranks mainboard, a few Drown in Sorrow, graveyard exile, and big stompy finisher guys at least Abyssal Persecutor size or bigger. I'm sick of playing weenies and I'm sick of playing against weenies too. I miss playing creatures that go 'thud.'
If all you had to do was beat UR Delver / Pyro, what would you build / pick to be guaranteed to beat it?
Note: I figured this would be a question on a lot of player's minds lately, so I'm not just asking for me.
Firstly, i'd look at some cards that beat UR Delver by themselves:
Volcanic Fallout does a nice job. They have a hard time handling Tarmogoyf permanently. (Typically they need a Pyromancer/Vapor Snags to buy them time to kill the 'Goyf player in the air). And traditionally Zoo has a good MU against Tempo, so, I'd probably sleeve up my Zoo deck once again, with 4x Fallout in the SB. Zoo also has a decent MU against Tier 2 rogue decks that aren't combo, and you get to run Ooze and Pridemage MD as splash hate. I also think Domri helps keep up with Treasure Cruise, while also providing removal.
I also think Next Level Blue in Temur colors would be decent with Fallout from the SB. Think Urg control is the best Tier1.5 deck no one is talking about, atm, and has been for a while.
i think this might be right up your alley. a deck created by caleb durwald called 'RW solution'. it is designed to beat delver and cruise and sports maindeck relics and volcanic fallouts. it has pro red creatures and swiftspears that never die to your own fallouts and i really don't think delver could ever beat this deck. he designed the deck for playing on MODO where i hear the meta is mostly just burn and delver. you can probably tweak the list a bit but it seems very strong against what you're expecting.
I've had good luck with GB Rock with Scooze and Drown in Sorrow effects. You can effectively keep them off TC with scooze and then board wipe any creature threats with Infest or Drown in Sorrow. Plus, scooze feeds off of the Drown in Sorrow and becomes a heavy beatstick pretty quickly. Backed by goyf, bob and Lilly, its a very winnable mu.
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Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
Affinity Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
There's a zoo deck that runs 4 MD chalice and volcanic fallouts
Think its on either mtgtop8 or mtggoldfish under chalizoo
It looks pretty entertaining to play.
Personally I would play Delver. Its a great matchup for itself especially on the play. Sideboard tons of Vapor Snags and add something like Batterskull.
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Active Modern Decks
U Tron GW Bogles RG Loam UR Blue Breach RBU Grixis Goryo BRU Grixis Delver GBR Jund GBW Junk
I love Delver, but don't have all the right pieces for it yet (missing land and Tiago for example). Add to this that I'm inexperienced at Delver - on a night when everybody and his dog is likely to be running Delver, I don't stand a chance in the mirrors and I'll still get pummeled by the Delver-hate decks. I'm far more experienced and confident in black and white, plus have the pieces for several decks and change in those colors. I love red and run that too, but this doesn't look like the right time to be dueling Bolts either.
That RW control deck looks wicked-good though, that's on my build-next list.
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I love Delver, but don't have all the right pieces for it yet (missing land and Tiago for example). Add to this that I'm inexperienced at Delver - on a night when everybody and his dog is likely to be running Delver, I don't stand a chance in the mirrors and I'll still get pummeled by the Delver-hate decks. I'm far more experienced and confident in black and white, plus have the pieces for several decks and change in those colors. I love red and run that too, but this doesn't look like the right time to be dueling Bolts either.
That RW control deck looks wicked-good though, that's on my build-next list.
I would recommend picking Tiago's up now, you can find cheap ones on ChannelFireball, SCG, TCG, Amazon, Ebay all for around 20-25 dollars each.
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U Tron GW Bogles RG Loam UR Blue Breach RBU Grixis Goryo BRU Grixis Delver GBR Jund GBW Junk
BW tokens was basically unwinnable last I checked, anthems, lingering souls and vault of the archangel are nightmares. If we're tuning one deck to beat delver, probably some ridiculous BW soul sisters. Maybe some sort of isochron scepter lightning helix deck.
Delver / Mancer doesn't run that many burn spells. A shot of lifegain / lifelink here or there, I'm good.
Delver himself is nothing for BW. Path or Disfigure and he's gone. Ditto Monastery Swiftspear and Snapcaster and whatever.
The main issue is with Young Pyromancer and all the blue draw spells. Land a Pyromancer and then go Gitaxian Probe into Serum Visions into Treasure Cruise into Gitaxian Probe into blah blah blah, they're making five or so tokens per turn average. They just swamp you.
Zealous Persecution is key here. That's a board wipe against everything in Delver but Delver himself and Swiftspear. Add to this that BW Tokens runs anthems where Delver does not, and you can be bigger across the rest of the board. With multiple tokens per card on my side making up for the crazy blue card draw circus on their side.
That and Thoughtseize together with Bojuka Bog , dropping it as late as possible in the turn to exile as many cards as possible from their graveyard, keeping them off Treasure Cruise.
multiple removal with BG rock.. i played with it last time, its fine with Darkblast sideboard.. kill the main creature before it turns into something else because most of their creature are X/1 only.. 1 mana repeatable removal is good in this kind of situation.. it's pseudo uncounterable since it will just keep recuring..
then you can go with Drown in Sorrow or other mass removal when it's becoming too much... Treetop Village for the beater to finish the job if your Tarmo or Finks or Thrun or whatever else fails
I'm 6-2 vs. UR Delver with BG/w playing Lingering Souls.
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These days, some wizards are finding they have a little too much deck left at the end of their $$$.
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Let's start with the one card that UR delver actually can't win through: Night of Soul's Betrayal. Throw in three of those mainboard with 4x Curse of Death's Hold, and then build a deck with those in mind. Easy peasy.
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Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Let's start with the one card that UR delver actually can't win through: Night of Soul's Betrayal. Throw in three of those mainboard with 4x Curse of Death's Hold, and then build a deck with those in mind. Easy peasy.
I don't think relying on resolving spells that cost 4-5 mana is the way to go when you're up against a deck that both draws lots of cards and plays counterspells.
I think the keys are this:
1. Gain a little life. Most current Delver builds are fairly all-in on the aggro plan, running weaker burn spells (sometimes including Gut Shot!?!) to build around Monastery Swiftspear. Gaining a little life can buy you a little time.
2. Having enough removal to make sure a Young Pyromancer's average lifespan is about 2 seconds. You also want enough to spare to kill flipped Delvers and Swiftspears (when there's an opening to do so). The deck is light on threats, so attack them there. With no threats, it's really a deck full of bad cards (Treasure Cruise itself excepted, of course...)...which leads us to:
3. Attack its effeciency. Make it's efficiency a weakness, not a strength. Chalice of the Void on one all but locks them out (but beware that they can still make Pyromancer tokens). Thalia, Guardian of Thraben has to be answered (and probably will be in short order, but at least she'll buy you time).
I think Lightning Helix is the best card you could run, since it does both 1 and 2. Red also gives you plenty of other removal (Forked Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Arc Trail are all good). Fight fire with fire, if you will.
Add a black splash for zealous persecution, lingering souls, and vault of the archangel. Has the benefit of being amazing vs. burn, goblins, zoo, and other red-based decks, and reasonable vs. basically anything fair. Bad combo matchup, but at least it's got good sideboard options in RIP, stony silence, suppression field, ect. Also not strong vs. hard control decks, although ghostway can save you from that turn 4 wrath and is played infrequently enough that they probably won't see it coming.
If you had a deck that could drop that turn 1 for one on the play, I would scoop and sign and walk away.
Those talking life gain, you have to gain life early and often. Turn 3 is usually too late, mainly because the red decks are main boarding skullcrack. They can play through your life gain with ease.
Play a slightly delver tuned zoo list. Zoo probably has one of the best delver matchups. If delver decides to play gut shots, magma sprays, forked bolts like it is currently, than it gets even better.
I'm doing a lot of work with my zoo deck and Im pretty much playing a stock zoo list with 4 main board fallouts.
I honestly think Lightning Bolt is overkill vs Delver Decks. Nothing has 3 Toughness.
Forked Bolt is amazing. Electrickery may even have some use. Volcanic Fallout is awesome. Is Gut Shot bad? (I think spending 2 Life to snip an unflipped Delver, or a Pyromancer when they least expect it should be good..)
Soul Sisters, namely Auriok Champion does WORK (better than Firewalker imo.) And can Sideboard Rest in Peace to shut off Cruise and Snapcaster.
Jotun Grunt is also interesting Tech, effectively a 4/4 you can swing with a couple of times that shuts off Cruise.
Spirit of the Labyrinth is also a cute Hatebear; prevents Cantrips and Cruises, keeps people honest (only Draw once, and from the Draw Step. :P)
Chalice, if it can Resolve, is pretty dirty. Just gotta be a Deck that doesn't need, and/or rely on, their 1-Drops (if you have any.)
I'm on team "beat it." So far, I've crafted a variant of BW Tokens built low to the ground and with generous graveyard hate, which can also survive a mono-red burn deck after appropriate side-boarding. It tests better against UR Delver than anything else I've figured out.
A side idea I have: I've noticed that Modern is just turning into a token-fest. Between Pyromancer, Rabblemaster, Brimaz, Lingering Souls, and Splinter Twin, it seems like every deck now plays tokens (even Pod plays Voice of Resurgence). Maybe I'm taking the wrong approach. I'm tempted to build a grindy mono-black deck with 4x Illness in the Ranks mainboard, a few Drown in Sorrow, graveyard exile, and big stompy finisher guys at least Abyssal Persecutor size or bigger. I'm sick of playing weenies and I'm sick of playing against weenies too. I miss playing creatures that go 'thud.'
If all you had to do was beat UR Delver / Pyro, what would you build / pick to be guaranteed to beat it?
Note: I figured this would be a question on a lot of player's minds lately, so I'm not just asking for me.
Volcanic Fallout does a nice job. They have a hard time handling Tarmogoyf permanently. (Typically they need a Pyromancer/Vapor Snags to buy them time to kill the 'Goyf player in the air). And traditionally Zoo has a good MU against Tempo, so, I'd probably sleeve up my Zoo deck once again, with 4x Fallout in the SB. Zoo also has a decent MU against Tier 2 rogue decks that aren't combo, and you get to run Ooze and Pridemage MD as splash hate. I also think Domri helps keep up with Treasure Cruise, while also providing removal.
I also think Next Level Blue in Temur colors would be decent with Fallout from the SB. Think Urg control is the best Tier1.5 deck no one is talking about, atm, and has been for a while.
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i think this might be right up your alley. a deck created by caleb durwald called 'RW solution'. it is designed to beat delver and cruise and sports maindeck relics and volcanic fallouts. it has pro red creatures and swiftspears that never die to your own fallouts and i really don't think delver could ever beat this deck. he designed the deck for playing on MODO where i hear the meta is mostly just burn and delver. you can probably tweak the list a bit but it seems very strong against what you're expecting.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Think its on either mtgtop8 or mtggoldfish under chalizoo
It looks pretty entertaining to play.
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U Tron
GW Bogles
RG Loam
UR Blue Breach
RBU Grixis Goryo
BRU Grixis Delver
GBR Jund
GBW Junk
Active Legacy Decks
BR Reanimator
RG Tron is also highly effective if you tune it properly to a Delver meta.
That RW control deck looks wicked-good though, that's on my build-next list.
Even playing sweepers and lifegain they have to come down early to be effective. The trick is mulliganing aggressively to get what you need early.
I would recommend picking Tiago's up now, you can find cheap ones on ChannelFireball, SCG, TCG, Amazon, Ebay all for around 20-25 dollars each.
U Tron
GW Bogles
RG Loam
UR Blue Breach
RBU Grixis Goryo
BRU Grixis Delver
GBR Jund
GBW Junk
Active Legacy Decks
BR Reanimator
Well, let me clear up some method to my madness:
Delver / Mancer doesn't run that many burn spells. A shot of lifegain / lifelink here or there, I'm good.
Delver himself is nothing for BW. Path or Disfigure and he's gone. Ditto Monastery Swiftspear and Snapcaster and whatever.
The main issue is with Young Pyromancer and all the blue draw spells. Land a Pyromancer and then go Gitaxian Probe into Serum Visions into Treasure Cruise into Gitaxian Probe into blah blah blah, they're making five or so tokens per turn average. They just swamp you.
Zealous Persecution is key here. That's a board wipe against everything in Delver but Delver himself and Swiftspear. Add to this that BW Tokens runs anthems where Delver does not, and you can be bigger across the rest of the board. With multiple tokens per card on my side making up for the crazy blue card draw circus on their side.
That and Thoughtseize together with Bojuka Bog , dropping it as late as possible in the turn to exile as many cards as possible from their graveyard, keeping them off Treasure Cruise.
then you can go with Drown in Sorrow or other mass removal when it's becoming too much... Treetop Village for the beater to finish the job if your Tarmo or Finks or Thrun or whatever else fails
MTG finance guy- follow me on Twitter@RichArschmann or RichardArschmann on Reddit
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My Decks that have been BANNED
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Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
I don't think relying on resolving spells that cost 4-5 mana is the way to go when you're up against a deck that both draws lots of cards and plays counterspells.
I think the keys are this:
1. Gain a little life. Most current Delver builds are fairly all-in on the aggro plan, running weaker burn spells (sometimes including Gut Shot!?!) to build around Monastery Swiftspear. Gaining a little life can buy you a little time.
2. Having enough removal to make sure a Young Pyromancer's average lifespan is about 2 seconds. You also want enough to spare to kill flipped Delvers and Swiftspears (when there's an opening to do so). The deck is light on threats, so attack them there. With no threats, it's really a deck full of bad cards (Treasure Cruise itself excepted, of course...)...which leads us to:
3. Attack its effeciency. Make it's efficiency a weakness, not a strength. Chalice of the Void on one all but locks them out (but beware that they can still make Pyromancer tokens). Thalia, Guardian of Thraben has to be answered (and probably will be in short order, but at least she'll buy you time).
I think Lightning Helix is the best card you could run, since it does both 1 and 2. Red also gives you plenty of other removal (Forked Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Arc Trail are all good). Fight fire with fire, if you will.
Modern: GW Hatebears/midrange, WGU Knightfall/evolution midrange stuff
Standard: nope
Legacy: W Death & Taxes
EDH (not Commander!): W Avacyn, Angel of Hope, GR Ruric Thar, the Unbowed, WGB Anafenza, the Foremost, WU Hanna, Ship's Navigator
Yep.
Add a black splash for zealous persecution, lingering souls, and vault of the archangel. Has the benefit of being amazing vs. burn, goblins, zoo, and other red-based decks, and reasonable vs. basically anything fair. Bad combo matchup, but at least it's got good sideboard options in RIP, stony silence, suppression field, ect. Also not strong vs. hard control decks, although ghostway can save you from that turn 4 wrath and is played infrequently enough that they probably won't see it coming.
look at this decklist, the article is in spanish, but the decklist in english.
use google translator or something like that, but begins with a intro like "why play delver or burn when you can play a deck that beat those".
If you had a deck that could drop that turn 1 for one on the play, I would scoop and sign and walk away.
Those talking life gain, you have to gain life early and often. Turn 3 is usually too late, mainly because the red decks are main boarding skullcrack. They can play through your life gain with ease.
I'm doing a lot of work with my zoo deck and Im pretty much playing a stock zoo list with 4 main board fallouts.
Forked Bolt is amazing. Electrickery may even have some use. Volcanic Fallout is awesome. Is Gut Shot bad? (I think spending 2 Life to snip an unflipped Delver, or a Pyromancer when they least expect it should be good..)
Soul Sisters, namely Auriok Champion does WORK (better than Firewalker imo.) And can Sideboard Rest in Peace to shut off Cruise and Snapcaster.
Jotun Grunt is also interesting Tech, effectively a 4/4 you can swing with a couple of times that shuts off Cruise.
Spirit of the Labyrinth is also a cute Hatebear; prevents Cantrips and Cruises, keeps people honest (only Draw once, and from the Draw Step. :P)
Chalice, if it can Resolve, is pretty dirty. Just gotta be a Deck that doesn't need, and/or rely on, their 1-Drops (if you have any.)
Death and Taxes
Pauper
UB Teachings
Tortured Existence
Murasa Tron
Modern
Pod (RIP)
Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk